# A Drive Into Deep Left Field By Castellanos > A Drive Into Deep Left Field By Castellanos is a 2020 bait-and-switch copypasta originating when Cincinnati Reds announcer Thom Brennaman interrupted an on-air apology to call a Nick Castellanos home run, sparking countless variations. "A Drive Into Deep Left Field By Castellanos" is a copypasta and bait-and-switch meme born from one of the most surreal moments in baseball broadcasting history. On August 19, 2020, Cincinnati Reds announcer Thom Brennaman attempted to apologize on air for using a homophobic slur, only to instinctively interrupt his own apology to call a Nick Castellanos home run mid-sentence[2]. The clip spawned a copypasta format where people insert the home run call into the middle of serious statements, fake apologies, and somber news updates, and it still gets deployed every time Castellanos goes deep during a notable event[8]. ## Origin During the first game of a Wednesday doubleheader between the Cincinnati Reds and Kansas City Royals on August 19, 2020, play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman was caught on a hot mic calling an unidentified city "one of the fag capitals of the world"[1]. Brennaman was broadcasting remotely from Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, and the slur was picked up only on the MLB.tv out-of-market stream, not on the main Fox Sports Ohio cable feed[6]. According to David J. Halberstam, who later interviewed Brennaman, the city in question was San Francisco[6]. The comment went viral on social media during the second game. By the top of the fifth inning, Brennaman's bosses pulled him off the broadcast[4]. Before handing duties to Jim Day, Brennaman was given the chance to apologize. As he launched into his statement, Reds right fielder Nick Castellanos stepped up to face Royals reliever Greg Holland[2]. Brennaman began: "I made a comment earlier tonight that I guess went out over the air that I am deeply ashamed of. If I have hurt anyone out there, I can't tell you how much I say from the bottom of my heart, I'm so very, very sorry. I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith..."[6] At that exact moment, Castellanos crushed a Holland fastball 410 feet over the left-center field fence[2]. Three decades of broadcasting instinct kicked in, and Brennaman seamlessly pivoted: "...as there's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos, it will be a home run, and so that'll make it a 4-0 ballgame"[6]. He then returned to his apology without missing a beat: "I don't know if I'm gonna be putting on this headset again." Twitter user @allairematt posted the clip shortly after it aired, picking up over 3,000 retweets and 15,000 likes[5]. Adding to the absurdity, the ball landed directly next to a Planet Fitness billboard reading "judgement-free zone"[2]. - **Platform:** Fox Sports Ohio (broadcast), Twitter (viral spread) - **Creator:** Thom Brennaman (announcer), Nick Castellanos (subject), @allairematt (viral clip poster) - **Date:** 2020 ## Overview The meme centers on a specific passage from Brennaman's on-air apology, where he says "I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith" before cutting himself off to call Castellanos's home run in the exact same somber monotone[4]. The full quote runs from the apology through the play-by-play and back into the apology, creating a jarring tonal collision between a man's career unraveling and the routine mechanics of calling a baseball game. In copypasta form, users write out a serious or sincere-sounding message and interrupt it partway through with "as there's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that'll be a home run. And so that'll make it a 4-0 ballgame." The format works as both a bait-and-switch punchline and a way to mock insincere public apologies[2]. ESPN's Pablo Torre compared the original moment to "listening to the band play on as the Titanic was sinking. Except the band was also somehow the iceberg"[2]. ## How It Spread The clip went viral immediately, but the copypasta format took longer to crystallize. As The Ringer noted, there's a "Mandela Effect-like" quality to the timeline: the phrase was spoken on August 19, but the copypasta didn't truly explode until over a month later[4]. The Reds suspended Brennaman the night of the incident[1]. Fox Sports announced the next day that he would no longer call their NFL broadcasts[7]. For the next five weeks, the clip circulated widely, but mostly as a straight video share rather than a text format[4]. On September 25, 2020, Brennaman officially resigned from the Reds[3]. The team's statement on Twitter called him "a fantastic talent and a good man," and that's when the floodgates opened[3]. Hundreds of users replied to the Reds' tweet by starting a sincere-seeming response and dropping the home run call in the middle. The Defector documented the pile-on, noting replies like: "Y'all, this is a Serious tweet from the Reds and I expect more from you, as there's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that'll be a homerun"[3]. Within a week, the format expanded beyond baseball. On October 2, 2020, Twitter user @RichardStaff used the copypasta to parody Donald Trump's announcement that he had tested positive for COVID-19, earning over 3,100 retweets and 23,000 likes[5]. User @luoldengmvp applied it to tweets wishing Trump and Melania well, pulling in over 4,000 likes[5]. By early 2021, the format was fully established across Twitter. Journalist Jen Mac Ramos, described by The Ringer as "one of the foremost copypasta practitioners," called it "kind of like this decade's Rickroll"[2]. Social psychologist Dr. Rosanna Guadagno of Stanford framed the appeal differently: "If you want to call bullshit on someone, this is how you respond"[2]. ## How to Use The copypasta typically works in one of two ways: **Bait-and-switch format:** Write a sincere, serious, or emotional statement. Partway through a sentence, pivot without warning into "as there's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that'll be a home run. And so that'll make it a 4-0 ballgame. I don't know if I'll be putting on this headset again." Then optionally return to the serious tone. **Real-time deployment:** When something somber or significant is happening in the news and Castellanos is scheduled to play, post some variation of the call the instant he does anything noteworthy. The joke lands hardest when Castellanos actually hits a home run during a major event, which happens with eerie frequency[10]. Common conventions include opening with "I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith" to signal the meme early, or burying the transition deeper in a paragraph so readers don't see it coming[3]. The format works best when the surrounding text is genuinely serious or when it mimics the structure of a corporate apology. ## Cultural Impact The copypasta broke out of baseball fandom faster than most sports memes. It became a standard response template on Twitter for mocking insincere public apologies, corporate non-statements, and political doublespeak[2]. The format works because it does two things at once: it's funny on its own as a non sequitur, and it implicitly compares whatever you're interrupting to Brennaman's situation[2]. The meme crossed into real-world spaces. The bathroom wall transcription at Brown Truck Brewery in High Point, North Carolina, written out in full from memory (or from a phone), represents how deeply the copypasta embedded itself in internet-native culture[9]. Professional sports broadcasting acknowledged the meme directly. Adam Amin's deliberate callback during a Fox Sports broadcast in London showed the phrase had become part of baseball's shared vocabulary[11]. Castellanos's own Instagram embrace in 2023 confirmed the player was in on the joke[6]. Dr. Rosanna Guadagno, a social psychologist at Stanford who studies online influence, identified the copypasta as a form of group cultural critique: a shared tool for calling out perceived insincerity that signals in-group membership among those who recognize it[2]. The Ringer compared the dynamic to Rickrolling but noted the Castellanos copypasta carries an editorial point of view that Rick Astley links don't[2]. Gambling culture picked up on the pattern too, with some bettors targeting the Castellanos home run prop every time major news breaks[8]. ## Fun Facts - The homophobic slur was only picked up on the out-of-market MLB.tv stream, not the main Fox Sports Ohio cable broadcast. Most Reds fans in Cincinnati didn't hear it live[6]. - Castellanos's home run ball landed directly next to a Planet Fitness billboard reading "judgement-free zone," a detail that often gets lost in retellings[4]. - The copypasta didn't truly go viral until September 25, 2020, over five weeks after the original broadcast. The Brennaman resignation triggered the format, not the clip itself[4]. - Castellanos's first professional home run on May 1, 2011, coincided with the killing of Osama bin Laden. Nobody noticed the pattern for nearly a decade[8]. - Someone wrote the entire Brennaman apology in Sharpie on a shelf above a urinal at a North Carolina brewery. Another person wrote "LAME" through the middle of it[9]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is "A Drive Into Deep Left Field By Castellanos"? It's a copypasta meme based on Cincinnati Reds announcer Thom Brennaman's August 19, 2020, on-air apology for using a homophobic slur, which he interrupted mid-sentence to call a Nick Castellanos home run before returning to his apology[2]. ### Where did the meme come from? The original clip aired on Fox Sports Ohio during the second game of a Reds-Royals doubleheader on August 19, 2020. Twitter user @allairematt posted the clip, and it went viral[5]. The copypasta format exploded on September 25, 2020, when Brennaman officially resigned and fans flooded the Reds' statement with the home run call[3]. ### What does the meme mean? It's used to mock insincere apologies and interrupt serious statements with absurdity. Stanford social psychologist Dr. Rosanna Guadagno described it as a shared way to "call bullshit on someone"[2]. ### How do you use the meme? Write a serious or sincere-sounding message, then interrupt it mid-sentence with "as there's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that'll be a home run. And so that'll make it a 4-0 ballgame"[3]. Optionally continue with "I don't know if I'll be putting on this headset again." ### Is the meme still popular? Yes. As of 2024, the meme still gets deployed on social media every time Castellanos hits a home run during a notable event, and professional broadcasters like Fox Sports' Adam Amin have referenced it on air[11]. Some fans even bet on Castellanos home run props when big news breaks[8]. ### What did Thom Brennaman say that caused the controversy? Before a seventh-inning commercial return during the first game of the doubleheader, Brennaman's hot mic picked up him saying "one of the fag capitals of the world" about San Francisco[6]. The Reds suspended him that night[1]. ### Did Nick Castellanos know about the meme? Yes. His wife Jessica posted on Twitter in 2021 asking people to stop making the joke[4]. Nick embraced it with a February 2023 Instagram post captioned "And there's a deep drive... Phillies '23"[6]. ### Why does Castellanos keep hitting home runs during important moments? Nobody knows. His first professional home run in 2011 coincided with the killing of Osama bin Laden[8]. Since 2020, he's homered on 9/11, on the day the I-95 bridge collapsed in Philadelphia, during a Charlie Manuel stroke tribute, after the Trump assassination attempt, and the day Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, among others[8]. ### What happened to Thom Brennaman's career? Brennaman was suspended by the Reds on August 19, 2020, dropped from Fox Sports NFL broadcasts the next day, and resigned from the Reds on September 25, 2020[7]. He spent four years calling high school sports and Roberto Clemente League games in Puerto Rico before returning as the lead CW Football Saturday commentator in July 2024[11][6]. ### What was the Planet Fitness billboard? Castellanos's home run ball landed next to a Planet Fitness advertisement in left field that read "judgement-free zone," adding an extra layer of irony to the moment given that Brennaman was apologizing for using a slur[4]. ### Has the meme appeared in the real world? Yes. At Brown Truck Brewery in High Point, North Carolina, someone hand-wrote the entire Brennaman apology text in Sharpie on a shelf above a urinal[9]. ### Did other broadcasters reference the meme? Fox Sports announcer Adam Amin called a Castellanos home run in London on June 8, 2024, with the words "There's a deep drive to left field in London," a deliberate callback[11]. When Brennaman returned to broadcasting for CW Football Saturday, he alluded to the incident by emphasizing the name of an unrelated player named Castellanos[6]. ## References 1. [Thom Brennaman suspended after uttering anti-gay slur on air | CNN]() 2. [Reds Share Statement About Thom Brennaman, Hilarity Ensues As Here's A Drive Into Deep Left Field By Castellanos And That'll Be A Home Run. And So That'll Make It A 4-0 Ballgame. I Don't Know If I'll Be Putting On This Headset Again. | Defector]() 3. [How “A Drive Into Deep Left Field by Castellanos” Became the Perfect Meme for These Strange Times - The Ringer]() 4. [A Drive Into Deep Left Field By Castellanos - Know Your Meme]() 5. [A drive into deep left field by Castellanos]() 6. [5 years ago, a drive into deep left field by Castellanos changed everything]() 7. [How 'A Drive to Deep Left Field by Castellanos' became an MLB meme: Revisiting Thom Brennaman's awkward HR call | Sporting News]() 8. [13 times Nick Castellanos hit home runs during historic moments]() 9. [The internet comes to life above a urinal in a brewery]() 10. [Nick Castellanos home runs at bad times: A timeline of the meme that won't quit - Yahoo Sports]() 11. [Adam Amin uses 'deep drive to left' call for Nick Castellanos homer]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/a-drive-into-deep-left-field-by-castellanos Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library